Wayne Feiden, FAICP
Director of the UMass Center for Resilient Metro-Regions
BS Natural Resources, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Masters of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Biography
Wayne Feiden, FAICP is a lecturer of practice and the Director of the Center for Resilient Metro-Regions at UMass Amherst.
Beyond his work at UMass, Professor Feiden is the principal of Plan Sustain, Inc. a mission-driven planning and sustainability consultancy. Previous to that, he was the Director of Planning and Sustainability for Northampton. He led the city to earn the nation’s first Five-STAR Communities rating for sustainability and the highest “Commonwealth Capital” score, the former Massachusetts scoring of municipal sustainability efforts. Professor Feiden oversaw the city’s planning, conservation, sustainability, climate framework, and plan implementation efforts. His focus includes downtown revitalization, sustainable transportation, open space preservation and recreation, and streamlined regulatory efforts.
Professor Feiden's publications include five American Planning Association PAS reports: Strategic Planning, Planning Management, Assessing Sustainability, Planning for On-Site and Decentralized Wastewater Treatment, and Performance Guarantees, as well as other peer-reviewed and research papers.
Professor Feiden's paid and pro-bono consulting focuses on short-term strategic interventions on projects as varied as a greenway in Santa Rosa, master planning on the Hopi reservation; downtown planning in Port Angeles and Dublin; waterfront planning in Staten Island and St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and master planning in Haiti. His Eisenhower Fellowship to Hungary (1995), Fulbright to South Africa (2007), Fulbright to New Zealand (2011), German Marshall Fund Fellowship to Europe (2015), State Department Fellowship Exchanges to Indonesia (2023) and Malaysia (2017), and Bellagio Residency in Italy (2017) all focused on planning and sustainability issues.
Courses
HONORS 391AH: Sustainable and Resilient City
REGIONPL 652/COMM 397P: Tools & Tech In Planning
SUSTCOMM 333: Introduction to Community Economic Development
SUSTCOMM 395RI: Research Issues in Community Development